This headline seems dubious on the face of it.
Did the study results actually show this? If so, could simply spending more time online account for doing worse on this test?
Also, just for fun, you can take the test here. I got two wrong and I have no idea which ones they were 😅
I got a 19/20, and it reports the one missing point as being slightly skeptical. I’m guessing it was this headline, which I marked as fake: “International Relations Experts and US Public Agree: America Is Less Respected Globally.”
I feel like this is actually a test of two things: first, can you recognize the form that headlines tend to take? and second, can you recognize the kinds of things the media would be willing to say? The reason I marked that headline as fake is because it sounds slightly more casual than I’d expect.
So it’s no surprise that boomers would be able to answer those particular questions with more accuracy, because they grew up with headlines looking like the “real” headlines in the survey. Or put very bluntly, this is primarily a survey of how in-touch you are with boomers’ mode of journalism.
Boomers score highest on this test.
Stop the presses.
That’s a good point.
I’d imagine the gap would close considerably if the participants had access to the entire article and not just the headline.